Enough

Lately, for whatever reason, I've been having a lot of conversations about relationships and friendships; why some of them work, why some don't, why others sort of straddle a strange line between the two. Almost always the conversations begin and end with empathy. And really, that's usually what it boils down to, isn't it? Understanding, appreciation, insight. All those words that run along the spectrum of what it means to be a compassionate, self-aware sort of person. Of course, someone can be as kind and as thoughtful as they know how to be, but that isn't always enough.

Wait, I take that back. "Not enough." That's a phrase that's always bothered me a bit. "Not enough" for what? For who? So often I've heard someone say, "I did everything I could, but it just wasn't enough." Or, worse: "I wasn't enough." To me, that isn't the point. It's not that you aren't enough for somebody else. It's that you aren't enough for you in that relationship, because whatever is or isn't between you and another person doesn't make you feel good. That's the point. It's how you feel about yourself, not how you imagine you stack up against some made-up measurement or expectations.

Because here's the thing, if you're putting your all into something, fully invested in a friendship or a relationship, it better be a something (or someone) that makes you feel good, right?

Perfect, Sweet-Filled Birthday

3rd October 2014 was my 24th birthday. And, inevitably, I find myself considering where I am, where I've been..whether I'm who I expected to be at this age, whether I'm doing what I expected to do. Truth is: I am and I'm not. Some things have fallen right into place, right where I always imagined they would. Other things, though, have been surprises. Good and bad ones. But all of it, I'm very happy to say, feels right. As if it's inevitable. Certain, in the most wonderful of ways. And if I have one wish for 24, it'll be holding on to that. The feeling that everything, even the unexpected, is just as it should be.

When asked how I wanted to spend my birthday, I said I just wanted to spend it with the ones I love. Just like in the past. I didn't expect any cakes, gifts or celebration. But actually that's what I really got.....

After having a movie night (Anabelle..stupid creepy doll) and sleepover (it's been soooooo long since high school) with my girls (Farah and Jana) at Farah's place, Ifo took me out for a date on my birthday. It's a simple, lovely date; just me and him, watching Dracula Untold (awesome movie!), eating pizza, talking and talking and laughing. And hey, I got new books! If I stay and Where She Went, both by Gayle Forman. 

Two days after my birthday, we went out again, with other friends this time. It was raining heavily outside and I thought that something hot or soupy would be nice, so I suggested to eat at Natural Kitchen. But Ifo insisted to go to Secret Recipe, so we did. When we got there, Selvin and Russel were already waiting at the table. They hadn't ordered anything but plain water. Then Ifo excused himself to call Jasper outside, so we waited for them while browsing the menus. 

Few minutes later, Ifo and the rest appeared at the stairs; Ifo (playing ukulele), Desmond (holding a cake), Jasper, Mark and Carol. They're all singing out loud a Happy Birthday song, clapping..and I was....oh my God, I was so speechless, so surprised..I didn't know what to say. I just laughed and felt touched and ashamed at the same time. Touched, because I didn't expect any of those and it's been so long since I had that kind of surprise celebration..embarrassed, because everybody in the restaurant was looking at me and clapping along. Suddenly I became the centre of attention. Lol. It was all Ifo's idea..he'd been planning everything for almost a week, he brought The Baks and Wonder Women (girls group consisting me, Carol, Nelly, Fytt and Etha, but only Carol available that day) together as a team to celebrate my birthday. How nice! They even made a secret group chat to discuss the whole things. 

It was so sweet and wonderful. Thank you, everyone..thank you so much for surprising me good, I owe you guys a big time. I'm so grateful to have you guys in my life. And darling Ifo, I can't thank you enough..I love you. :)

post-sleepover

I'm a happy birthday girl

the cake was awesome

my sweethearts

I love you ^^

And So, You Get Up

Sometimes, life's heavy.

You don't notice it at 1st. It's like collecting stones. You start slowly, gently. At 1st, you can't feel the weight. Then it becomes harder to notice what's in front of you. You can't see the scope, the slope of the landscape, because you're focused on carrying the foundation. It's easier to shoulder it all and numb yourself to the weight.

But there's that place. That point where you read your threshold, your valley. Maybe you've walked for so long that you're bone weary and ringed with grief. Or perhaps you ran, the entire way, and your breath's knocked out of you. And you realize you don't know where you are, how you arrived. You look back and see that you've missed the markers, missed the milestones, missed the moments. Too busy holding onto the heaviness of the journey. It's been like that for so long that you're afraid you won't know who you are without it.

You have to let it go. To not go apathetic. To not go numb. To not go quiet. Don't let sorrow swallow your song. You need to be awake to the world, to life, to yourself. It feels like running for the 1st time, like stretching your shuddering muscles, like walking in the cold dew of morning. It stings. You start in the dark, with only the promise of sun. There's no light to outline the path. It doesn't matter. You've forgotten the road anyways. You've walked so long without one that trails are unfamiliar and foreign.

There's no hiding from brokenness. There's no running from grief. Some manage to evade it for longer, others find it knocking on their door daily. It has a face you cannot forget, leaves its calling card everywhere it goes. We're each stitched with ribbons of our every heartache, except, some of us are frayed. Even the best of us have tears.

Sometimes it feels easier, better, to go cold. To give into the pain and become numb, and once again, pick up the skeleton of who you were before grief marked your face. To let your heart harden. Lock it away and melt the key and live in the motions, never the moment. At the very point of pain, it seems less exhausting. But passivity's a silent slow killer, a lie that laps away at the texture of life like water on the stone.

And so, you get up. You keep moving though your bones ache. You walk until you run. You hum until you can sing. You catalogue small things until you can once again take in the scope. You choose to be awake. It's surprisingly painful. It's sobering to look around and realize you have forgotten what it means to be alive, for so long. It's October and you're barefoot and the ground has still not thawed.

Breathe. Again and again. Dive into the core and pressure point of your pain, the heart of your ache. It's red hot and white and bitter black. It shakes like starlight. You swallow it like stones. But you emerge and understand, it hasn't added a layer to your heart, but a ring. It's not a mark, but a message.

The thing about being awake is you notice things; good, bad, beautiful, painful, sorrow, sweet, bitter, broken, dizzying between everything. You cry more. You laugh deeper. You understand broken things and encourage flowers to just be. You find your soul sprouting little green things, that the roots of the marrow of being haven't left after all. And it's painful, the fire of wakening running like blood. You've been asleep for so long feeling's foreign.

But you begin to appreciate what's small. You begin to breathe gratitude. You stumble on meaning, find grace woven alongside ache. It's not easy, it's not quick. It's gradual, a journey. This time, instead of collecting stones, you're collecting colors of the sky. You jot down thanks and let them go wild in the plum breath of the evening. The smear of jam on toast, black coffee in the morning, a walk in the evening that lingers.

Look at the trees, how they burn. Look at the fields, how they deepen. Look at the world, how it cries. It's a choice to go deep and live through your pain, to feel it all, to choose to be awake to what comes. Bravely, when the time beckons, to let it go. Knowing that the struggle and searching builds strength, story, a song. Only, you'are alive and present and find the words to sing inside you, and they were, all along.

Two Against the World

read my review in Goodreads

I began reading fiction in high school, I remember feeling that each book was an absolute revelation. Whether I was reading Jane Austen or Jodi Picoult or John Green, there had never been anything like it before in my life. The novel's novelty passes, of course. I'm 24 now. I've read so many books. 

But I've never seen anything quite like Eleanor & Park. Though I've wrote the review in Goodreads, I still want to blog about it. It's Rainbow Rowell's first novel for young adults which is a beautiful, haunting love story, but I've seen those. It's set in 1986, the year I hadn't born yet but I know there's bullying, sibling rivalry, salvation through music and comics, a monstrous stepparent, and I know, we've seen all this stuff. But you've never seen Eleanor & Park. Its observational precision and richness make for very special reading.

Eleanor is a chubby girl with bright red hair (kids on the bus call her Big Red) who has just returned to her home in Omaha, after being kicked out for a year and forced to stay with acquaintances. Every moment Eleanor is home is terrifying and claustrophobic. She shares a room with a mess of siblings and lives in constant fear of offending her abusive alcoholic stepfather, Richie. She's also poor, she can't afford a toothbrush or batteries for her Walkman.

Park is a half-Korean boy who's passably popular but separated from the larger social order of his school both by his race and by his passion for comic books and punk rock music. On the 1st day of school, Eleanor sits down next to him on the bus. Over time, she begins reading his comics over his shoulder. Then he lends them to her. They bond over music. Eventually, they begin holding hands on the rides to and from school.

The hand-holding, by the way, is intense. 

"Holding Eleanor's hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat."

Evocative sensual descriptions are everywhere in this novel, but they always feel true to the characters. Eleanor describes Park's trench coat as smelling "like Irish Spring and a little bit like potpourri and like something she couldn't describe any other way than boy." 

Park watches Eleanor's mouth so closely that he "could see that her lips had freckles, too." 

After Eleanor criticizes him for saying she looks nice, Park thinks: "Eleanor was right: She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something." 

Every romance has its obstacle: I have another boyfriend, my parents say we can't, you're a vampire and I,m not, etc... But the obstacle in Eleanor & Park is simply the world. The world can't stomach a relationship between a good-looking Korean and Big Red. The world can't allow Eleanor a boyfriend of any kind, because she's poor and fat and dresses funny. The world can't allow Park a girlfriend because he likes wearing eyeliner and everyone knows that's gay. The world's the obstacle, as it always is when you're 16 and truly in love. Park's parents serve as evidence that sometimes love conquers the world, and Eleanor's family is a reminder that sometimes it doesn't. As for Eleanor and Park.....well, I won't spoil it.

Early in the novel, Park’s English teacher asks him why Romeo and Juliet has survived 400 years. With Eleanor looking on, Park says: "Because people want to remember what it’s like to be young? And in love?" After a moment, he adds, "Is that right?"

It is.

Emma Watson on Feminism

This is the full transcript of Emma Watson's speech at the launch of the HeForShe campaign in New York City:

Today we are launching a campaign called for HeForShe. I am reaching out to you because we need your help. We want to end gender inequality, and to do this, we need everyone involved. This is the first campaign of its kind at the UN. We want to try to mobilize as many men and boys as possible to be advocates for change. And, we don’t just want to talk about it. We want to try and make sure that it’s tangible.

I was appointed as Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women six months ago. And, the more I spoke about feminism, the more I realized that fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop.

For the record, feminism by definition is the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of political, economic and social equality of the sexes.

I started questioning gender-based assumptions a long time ago. When I was 8, I was confused for being called bossy because I wanted to direct the plays that we would put on for our parents, but the boys were not. When at 14, I started to be sexualized by certain elements of the media. When at 15, my girlfriends started dropping out of sports teams because they didn’t want to appear muscly. When at 18, my male friends were unable to express their feelings.

I decided that I was a feminist, and this seemed uncomplicated to me. But my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word. Women are choosing not to identify as feminists. Apparently, I’m among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, and anti-men. Unattractive, even.

Why has the word become such an uncomfortable one? I am from Britain, and I think it is right I am paid the same as my male counterparts. I think it is right that I should be able to make decisions about my own body. I think it is right that women be involved on my behalf in the policies and decisions that will affect my life. I think it is right that socially, I am afforded the same respect as men.

But sadly, I can say that there is no one country in the world where all women can expect to see these rights. No country in the world can yet say that they achieved gender equality. These rights, I consider to be human rights, but I am one of the lucky ones.

My life is a sheer privilege because my parents didn’t love me less because I was born a daughter. My school did not limit me because I was a girl. My mentors didn't assume that I would go less far because I might give birth to a child one day. These influences were the gender equality ambassadors that made me who I am today. They may not know it, but they are the inadvertent feminists that are changing the world today. We need more of those.

And if you still hate the word, it is not the word that is important. It’s the idea and the ambition behind it, because not all women have received the same rights I have. In fact, statistically, very few have.

In 1997, Hillary Clinton made a famous speech in Beijing about women’s rights. Sadly, many of the things that she wanted to change are still true today. But what stood out for me the most was that less than thirty percent of the audience were male. How can we effect change in the world when only half of it is invited or feel welcome to participate in the conversation?

Men, I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your issue, too. Because to date, I’ve seen my father’s role as a parent being valued less by society, despite my need of his presence as a child, as much as my mother’s. I’ve seen young men suffering from mental illness, unable to ask for help for fear it would make them less of a man. In fact, in the UK, suicide is the biggest killer of men between 20 to 49, eclipsing road accidents, cancer and coronary heart disease. I’ve seen men made fragile and insecure by a distorted sense of what constitutes male success. Men don’t have the benefits of equality, either.

We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes, but I can see that they are, and that when they are free, things will change for women as a natural consequence. If men don’t have to be aggressive in order to be accepted, women won’t feel compelled to be submissive. If men don’t have to control, women won’t have to be controlled.

Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong. It is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum, instead of two sets of opposing ideals. If we stop defining each other by what we are not, and start defining ourselves by who we are, we can all be freer, and this is what HeForShe is about. It’s about freedom.

I want men to take up this mantle so that their daughters, sisters, and mothers can be free from prejudice, but also so that their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human too, reclaim those parts of themselves they abandoned, and in doing so, be a more true and complete version of themselves.

You might be thinking, “Who is this Harry Potter girl, and what is she doing speaking at the UN?” And, it’s a really good question. I’ve been asking myself the same thing.

All I know is that I care about this problem, and I want to make it better. And, having seen what I’ve seen, and given the chance, I feel it is my responsibility to say something.

Statesman Edmund Burke said, “All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for good men and women to do nothing.”

In my nervousness for this speech and in my moments of doubt, I told myself firmly, “If not me, who? If not now, when?” If you have similar doubts when opportunities are presented to you, I hope those words will be helpful. Because the reality is that if we do nothing, it will take seventy-five years, or for me to be nearly 100, before women can expect to be paid the same as men for the same work. 15.5 million girls will be married in the next 16 years as children. And at current rates, it won't be until 2086 before all rural African girls can have a secondary education.

If you believe in equality, you might be one of those inadvertent feminists that I spoke of earlier, and for this, I applaud you. We are struggling for a uniting word, but the good news is, we have a uniting movement. It is called HeForShe. I invite you to step forward, to be seen and to ask yourself, “If not me, who? If not now, when?”

Thank you very, very much.

So...what say you?